Chicken keeping without coops or with mutiple coops

[chickeneinstein]

I lost a lot of chickens to one cayote and the last two are now free ranging and i have found that your coop may be well built but the predators just keep trying until they find a way,it may be easier for the predators to go after free ranging chickens,but they aren't confined to their doom.

 

[Conan]

Very interesting topic. Watching.
I have just over two acres of property and I free range exclusively. I have two coops. The coops are in close proximity to each other and the birds do roost in them at night. They are shut in there until let out in the morning. I use one for young birds to grow out from the brooder and the other is the "big bird" coop. I do not keep multiple roosters in such a small area, but my little dude is a real gentleman. I have no doubt that a larger rooster would hurt him badly or kill him.
My property, as a whole, is not fully fenced. I have lost birds. Coyotes, hawks, dogs, mink. It's a risk I am willing to take. I have fenced pens for my pigs as well as my ducks. The ducks have a huge pen and creek access. They spend their nights in a reinforced hoop coop. I have found that bantam breeds (my Bantam Cochins anyways) stay closer to the main coop and the house. My standard birds are a young group and I've already lost one to a coyote this year. Ventured too far towards the woods in the early hours of the morning. Only real measure taken: let the birds out of the coop later, once the real risk has passed for coyotes traversing the trail back to their main area.
I do try to integrate all birds once maturity is reached, but again, I am not keeping more than one rooster. All mature birds do use the same larger coop at night.

 

[centrarchid]

Subflocks
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/home-ranges-of-subflocks-getting-more-pasture-usage.408146/

 

[Shadrach]

Sitting/Broody strategy.

I have six coops here at the moment, four of which are living coops (large enough to sleep a tribe of 4 or 5 medium sized chickens) two outside hospital/maternity coops (suitable for one hen with small with young chicks, or cock for a short period of time) and an egg box in my house which is accessible throughout the day. Each tribe has its own coop. The larger coops have double egg/nesting boxes.

Having chickens day time free ranging often means a hen will lay her eggs away from a coop and when she goes broody, sit on them. Here, this isn’t safe. There are too many predators for a hen to sit for 25 days undetected by a predator. (21 days for hatching and 4 days until the chick is able to follow the hen back to the tribe, roughly)
Other hens lay in a nest/egg box in one of the coops, including the hospital/maternity units, and the nest box in my house.
All of the hens here have become broody at some point in the last seven years except a hen called Gedit who doesn’t lay eggs and a Maran called Mora. Some hens become broody more often than others.
Since introducing a multi coop where each tribe has its own coop, every hen has tried to return to the tribe coop with her chicks at some point.
What I’ve found interesting is the different strategies the hens adopt to maximise the chances of their chicks survival and integration into the tribe.

There have been occasions when the hen has been killed by a predator before she has returned to the tribe coop with her chicks. If the chicks survive without their mother then these chicks tend to form another tribe. Most don’t survive long enough to reach adulthood.
There have been occasions when the chicks aren’t the progeny of the senior cock in the tribe and these chicks also tend to form another tribe if they survive. On the two occasions this has happened the mother has returned to the tribe without her chicks, or has tried to return with the chicks but the chicks haven’t been accepted into the tribe and were driven out.

The strategy at the point of sitting can be divided into two classes, those who lay and sit in the tribe coop and those who lay and sit outside.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both strategies and it seems the status of the hen in the tribe may have some influence on which strategy she adopts.

The advantages of laying and sitting in the tribe coop are:

Safety: the risk of discovery be predators except human is low.

Shelter; outside the elements can destroy a nest site. On a couple of occasions when a hen had chosen to sit on a bank, the entire site was washed away in a storm.

Easy access to food, water and dust bathing:

The coops are close to feeding points and popular dust bath locations.

There is no need to ’introduce’ the chicks to the tribe and the cock is more likely to imprint the chicks at an earlier stage. This in theory at least means the chicks are more likely to get some security from moving with the tribe at an earlier stage but this doesn’t always happen.

There are many advantages for the keeper of the hen that lays and sits in a coop.
You can monitor their condition and progress and it gives you control over how many eggs if any the hen sits on. This can be very important if you have limited coop space.

Some of the hens here, particularly the Marans seem to have lost the instinct to get off the eggs daily for food water and bathing. I’ve had to lift the hens off the eggs and provide food and water and, this is very important for a sitting hens health, make a dust bath and make sure they use it.

The Marans here are prone to tendon strain when sitting. They find it difficult to sit on top of the eggs and support their weight. What happens is they spread the eggs around their body and try to get their bodies as close to the eggs as possible. This tends to splay their legs and long periods of time in this position has given two hens here a permanent limp.

The disadvantages are:

Other hens may lay in the tribe coop and in the same nest box as the sitting hen. This can cause egg breakages and competition over who should sit on the eggs.

Human egg predation: it’s a lot easier for humans to collect the eggs. It’s would be interesting to know if the hen is aware of this risk. When I have taken the eggs at various points during the 21 days the hen lays her eggs somewhere else for a period of time but often returns to laying in the coop at a later date.

Hygiene and health risks: I clean the coops in rotation but even in say five or six days the accumulation of dust, feather and shit when five chickens roost in a coop is considerable.

Attention from cockerels from other tribes. In general the cocks tend to leave sitting hens alone, but recently I’ve had a couple of cockerels that bothered the sitting hen.

Heat stress: In mid summer it is often cooler under a bush or on an open bank in high grass that catches the breeze that blows up the valley, than it is in a coop.


The advantages of sitting outside:

Little risk of being discovered by humans.

Better nest sites: Nest boxes are fine for hens who lay eggs that you are going to take. For a hen that is broody and wants to sit, most egg boxes aren’t really satisfactory. Most chicken keepers have watch a hen make a nest site. They pick the site and scratch the ground. The ground scratching is to make a hollow in which to lay the eggs. This isn’t possible on a hard floor and if they haven’t scratched all the bedding out of the nest box while trying to make this hollow you end up with a bare patch of floor with what nesting material is left around the edges. It’s also very difficult for a hens feet to get a good grip on a hard floor and this makes posture and comfort an issue.

The best nest base material is earth, preferably with vegetation growing in and around the site.
The roots of the vegetation help hold the base soil together even though the vegetation itself might be destroyed in the scratching. Usually the hens here pick a spot with high grass or under a dense bush; this isn’t just for concealment, the ground retains moisture better and the hollow they dug retains it shape.

The unsuitability of wooden nest boxes for sitting hens drove me to experiment with ‘sitting boxes’.
They need to be strong because they’re filled to a depth of 6 inches with soil. They need to have high sides and a roof. I’ve found a circular opening in the front of the box does best at keeping the soil in. I’m still experimenting.

In the meantime the hospital coops I built have removable floors and this solves the hard floor problem but leaves the coop vulnerable to digging predators such as foxes. We don’t get many foxes here and those we do get are still human shy fortunately.
I’ve used one of the hospital coops without a floor a couple of times now and the hens seem to like it. It’s right outside my house, but even so I looking for a way to make it ‘dig proof’ and still be movable.

Less risk of other hens laying their eggs at that site and/or sitting competitions.
(It always amazes me how all the chickens here seem to know where everyone else is.0

Fewer problems from senior hens. There have been a few occasions when a junior hen in a tribe has been prevented from sitting in the tribe coop by a senior hen. The senior hen pecks the junior until she gets off the eggs.


The disadvantages of sitting outside should be obvious; predators.

Quite a few hens try to sit outside here. The fact that they survive a single night still surprises me.

I’m better at it now, but it’s taken me a two or three days to find some of the sitting hens.

You just can’t thoroughly search four acres of land here; much of it is on slopes covered with bushes and shrubs below trees. I’ve almost trodden on sitting hens in the past.

The hens that sit outside have so far thankfully all got of the eggs at some point in the day for food, water, and dust bathing. Often you can hear the hen, especially if she encounters other chickens, the clucking is incessant. The amount of time the hen spends off the eggs each day varies form hen to hen, but in general they’re off for longer in the first few days and given I'm outside a lot, I hear ,or see them and try to follow them back to the nest site when they return. Once the site is found I usually wait until dark and collect the hen and the eggs. As a rule I don’t let a hen that’s chosen an outside sitting site keep the eggs and then sit on those eggs in a coop. (there have been exceptions)
Those that try and sit in another tribes coop invariably get driven out by the senior hen of that tribe.
The most common situation with broody hens here is they lay and then in coop that isn’t their tribe coop, usually one of the hospital/maternity coops but sometimes in another tribes coop.
Since installing a nest box in my house, it’s become the favorite place to lay and sit for all the hens of Tribe 1.
The nest box has none of the attributes that are often sited as preferable to a hen.
It’s completely open. It’s off the ground. While the house is usually very quiet people do come and go. The rest of Tribe 1 are frequent visitors. I keep odd hours so rest times vary. I like music and while I use headphones when a hen is sitting the music can still be heard.
It seems that the hens believe it’s safe and this is the most important criteria for hens choosing nesting sites. Interestingly, what I consider safe and the hens consider safe is different.

This has most of the advantages of sitting in the coop of the tribe they belong to except one and that is at some point they will return to the tribe coop with the chicks. This I discovered is the most critical moment in the chicks lives.

For senior hens taking the kids home is less of a problem. They don’t have to worry about other hens aggressive behaviour to them or their chicks. They do still have to overcome the problem of persuading the chicks to enter the tribe coop. I’ve been told by other multi coop chicken keepers that if the chicks won’t enter the coop and the hen isn’t persistent in encouraging them, eventually the hen gives up and leaves the chicks to fend for themselves. Fortunately that hasn’t happened here, although I have had a hen just desert the chicks and move into another coop.

Different hens have different strategies for getting the chicks home. Some just march the chicks into the tribe home as soon as the chicks are mobile enough to make the journey. The chicks when they are that young just follow mum, and don’t yet seem to have any fear of new surroundings, or other chickens.

Older chicks can be more of a problem. They’ve had time to get used to the place they were hatched in and, being free range, often have some not so good experiences of the hens in the tribe.

Here the cocks have been far better behaved with young chicks then the hens.

Because the tribe coops are on legs here there is a ramp which must be climbed to enter the coop. This has proven to be a stumbling block for some chicks. Mum goes up the ramp and calls for the chicks and the chicks can hear her but can’t see her and often they gather underneath the coop where mums calls are coming from, but don’t climb the ramp.
Mum comes back out again and tries again. Often taking the chicks home is done at dusk when the rest of the tribe are on the perch and the coop has gone quiet. If the chicks won’t climb the ramp mum comes out and either returns with the chicks to the place they were hatched, or tucks the chicks under her wing and sits underneath the coop and would presumably stay there for the night.

With many of the hens, particularly those that take older chicks home you get warning trial runs. Sometimes the hen takes the chick to the location of tribe home on successive evenings, remaining close to the tribe home longer each time.

I’m always there when a hen takes her chicks back to the tribe coop.

Having spent too many hours waiting for chicks to work out how to climb the ramps I assist the hen these days. If none of the chicks go into the coop I wait to see if mum takes them back to the hatching site. If she does then we all try again the next time.
If one chick or some chicks go in and others won’t; that’s a problem. I’m told that’s it for the chicks outside. Mum doesn’t come back out for them usually. I’ve haven’t tested this.
I catch the chicks and put them in with mum. Of course the chicks give distress calls and mum comes out in full battle order. We’ve always got all the chicks even though I often receive a few cuts and peck marks for my trouble from mum.

 

[townchicks]

I'm curious. Do you leave the house open to the hens all day? Do you have just the one nest in the house? Does more than one hen try to use the box in the house at the same time? If so, what happens? Do you also collect and eat eggs or are all the hens free to brood as desired?

 

[Shadrach]

Very interesting topic. Watching.
I have just over two acres of property and I free range exclusively. I have two coops. The coops are in close proximity to each other and the birds do roost in them at night. They are shut in there until let out in the morning. I use one for young birds to grow out from the brooder and the other is the "big bird" coop. I do not keep multiple roosters in such a small area, but my little dude is a real gentleman. I have no doubt that a larger rooster would hurt him badly or kill him.
My property, as a whole, is not fully fenced. I have lost birds. Coyotes, hawks, dogs, mink. It's a risk I am willing to take. I have fenced pens for my pigs as well as my ducks. The ducks have a huge pen and creek access. They spend their nights in a reinforced hoop coop. I have found that bantam breeds (my Bantam Cochins anyways) stay closer to the main coop and the house. My standard birds are a young group and I've already lost one to a coyote this year. Ventured too far towards the woods in the early hours of the morning. Only real measure taken: let the birds out of the coop later, once the real risk has passed for coyotes traversing the trail back to their main area.
I do try to integrate all birds once maturity is reached, but again, I am not keeping more than one rooster. All mature birds do use the same larger coop at night.

Tribe 2 (Bantams) here tend to stick to a well defined routine and territory. They also tend to stay closer to the main house than the mixed breeds and the Marans.
Since building my house and letting the Marans come and go as they please their routine has changed along with their territory.
Predators are always a problem here and for most people who allow their chickens to free range. I've had an attack today. I don't even know what it was. Ruffles who lives with Tribe 1 took the strike. Fortunately I heard the alarm calls and Tribe 1 wasn't far away. I do what I usually do which is run out shouting and when I got to the top of the bank the rest of Tribe 1 had got to safety but Ruffles, who has a limp was still getting up the slope. She came into the house and hid behind the toilet.
I've checked her over now and she's eaten, but not as much as usual. I think she's okay and I put her in with her Tribe. I'll check on her again before I go to bed.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm curious. Do you leave the house open to the hens all day? Do you have just the one nest in the house? Does more than one hen try to use the box in the house at the same time? If so, what happens? Do you also collect and eat eggs or are all the hens free to brood as desired?

Yes, all day.
Yes, just one nest box, much to Mel and Fudge's disgust. I tried two but the hens want to sit where the rest have laid eggs.
Yes, (there's a picture above somewhere of two hens sitting in the box)
It depends on the hens. Mel and Fudge are sisters and they'll bicker at each other but eventually both lay eggs. If Fat Bird is in the nesting box then none of the junior hens would dare to interfere.
I do collect and eat the eggs and very nice they are too.
I try to let every hen sit at least once, but I control how many eggs they can sit on.

 

[Shadrach]

Mating
This post will probably have some people rolling on the floor with laughter.
Here, the hens choose the cocks.
I’ve watched the courting so many times now, and it’s often very funny.
Once a cock (not the cockerels) have three hens they stop actively trying to attract more.
In fact, the mature cocks will chase a hen away if he knows it belongs to another tribe.
Raping another cocks hen here causes fights and fights cause injuries and sometimes death, but more important, is the cocks lose face if they lose a fight and if this happens they have more difficulty taking their hens into other tribes territory.
A cock who loses a fight often hangs about on the fringe of his tribe of hens whining. The hens of his tribe don’t desert him but when it comes to food they’ll happily mix in with the tribe which has the cock that won the fight.
The cocks don’t like seeing their hens with another cock. The fact that the other cock often drives the losing cocks hens away so his hens get the food, probably irritates the cock that lost the fight even more.
The hens want to go where the best foraging is and the cocks want to gain credit by being able to take them there. If the cock can’t hold his own against a cock from another tribe he can’t move around as freely.

So, what happens is the tribes tend to work around each other rather than constantly fight over resources. You get a lot of posturing from the cocks and often a brief fight if the cocks get too close to each other, but in general they manage to exist together,

This story helps to illustrate one of the points I’m trying to make.

Rip and Notch were brothers. While they were cockerels they lived together in a tribe coop. When they got old enough to attract hens Notch drove Rip out of the tribe home and Rip perched at night up a tree outside my house for a while. The place he chose to perch was reasonable safe and he was too high for me to easily get him down.
During the day he would follow his tribe, but at a safe distance from Notch. When Rip got too close, Notch would drive him away. This went on for a few weeks. One of the maternity coops became free and I managed to get Rip out of the tree at night and put him in this maternity coop.
Notch had six hens and when the junior hens went to lay an egg Rip would follow the hen, and Notch if he escorted them, and wait close to where this junior hen was laying. Notch returned to the tribe.
( it might be helpful if the reader reads The Role Of The Cock in post 23 At this point)

Once an egg laying site is established the cocks don’t escort the hens to the site any more, or escort them part of the way and then return to the tribe.
When the junior hen came out of the coop, or laying site, Rip would already be there and the hen didn’t make the escort call. Rip would escorted the hen back to the outskirts of the tribe and remained on the fringe until another hen went to lay an egg. Rip did this with three junior hens (Donk, Dent and Myth) from Notch’s tribe for a couple of weeks. Dent was the first Rip started to escort, he would also take up watch duties while Dent dust bathed. The change was gradual, some mornings Rip would have two hens with him and later in the day, I would see the hens back with Notch. Eventually first one hen and then another ,didn’t return to Notch and stayed with Rip.

The three junior hens lived in a separate coop to Notch. They lived there before Notch grew up and stayed there partly because there wasn’t enough room in Notches coop and partly because they had lived together like this for some time. Donk did at one point try to move in with Notch but got driven out by a more senior hen.

I was closing the chickens in for the night one evening and Rip hung around the coop of the three junior hens. Once the three hens had gone inside, and settled, Rip climbed up the ramp to the coop door and stood outside making coo cooing sounds while nodding his head. He stood there for a couple of minutes occasional sticking his head through the door. On this occasion I didn’t hear the hens in side respond but Rip suddenly straightened up and went into the coop and got on the perch with Donk, Dent and Myth.
I didn’t see Rip try to mate with any of the three hens while he was escorting them back and forth.
The next morning as soon as they left the coop, Myth crouched for Rip.
Notch seemed unconcerned by losing three hens to Rip. He would still chase Rip if Rip came too close but Donk, Dent and Myth stayed with Rip until he died.

Every new tribe, and every time a cock has died and left tribe hens behind, this is roughly what happens. The new cock escorts the hens first, tries to impress them with finding them treats; if his attentions are unwelcome the hens will fight him off, particularly the senior hens. Most chicken keepers with cocks will have seen a cock do the 'your my hen dance' where the cock hopes around the hen kicking his offside leg out. I’ve watched young cockerels do this to senior hens and the hen goes for the cockerel ,or dodges around him.


Cillin became an orphan at about two months old and before his mother (Otic ) managed to returned to Tribe 2 with her chicks. Otic was a junior hen in Tribe 2 and hatched her chicks in one of the maternity coops and not in the tribe home. Having not been introduced to the tribe by his mother Cillin was left to fend for himself.
I had been at the coop when Cillin was hatched, I had hand fed him as he grew and been there observing Otic and her chicks most days. Most days Cillin would shelter in a clump of bamboo that is opposite the car port where I often work. Cillin started to come over and visit me and I would feed him pieces of walnut and talk to him.
It became apparent after a while that Cillin considered me to be his hen. He would gently peck at my boots until I picked him up. Cillin began to follow me around; I suppose I was the nearest creature there was to a relative. I didn’t discourage him and soon Cillin was spending much of his day in and around my house.
Tribe 1 had lost two members to predators in quick succession a few months before and all that was left was Fat Bird and Ruffles. These two hens also spent a great deal of time in and around my house.
I had tried a few times in the past to get Bantam, or cross breed cocks and cockerels interested in Maran hens. It didn’t work, and with just two hens left in Tribe 1 its long term prospects didn’t look good.
At first when Fat Bird and Ruffles arrived at my house Cillin would stand outside looking nervous and wouldn’t go anywhere near the two hens.
Most of the hens here are quite able to fend off unwanted attention from a cockerel. Fat Bird and Ruffles in particular, won’t stand for any nonsense.
In the evenings Fat Bird would give the escort call to be escorted back to the tribe coop and I would take her and Ruffles home. Cillin started to follow us on these evening journeys; always at a discrete distance and watch Fat Bird and Ruffles climb into their coop. Cillin gradually became more confident and would first hover in the doorway but not come in if Fat Bird and Ruffles were inside. Eventual he came into the house, careful to keep himself between the two hens and the door in case he needed to make a quick exit. The evening escort duties carried on for a couple of weeks, Cillin always a few metres behind. One evening Fat Bird gave the usual escort call at bedtime and Cillin started to lead the way with me and the two hens following. He went right up to the ramp that leads into the coop and waited there until the two hens went inside. A couple of days later and I was the one following at discrete distance and Cillin was leading the way.
A couple of times in my house, Cillin did try the your my hen dance and got a slap from Ruffles both times for his trouble.
I had by now some idea of the eventual outcome and didn’t want to miss the big event so I watched Cillin take the hens to their coop every evening. One evening Fat Bird and Ruffles went inside and Cillin climbed the ramp and stood outside the door making coo cooing noises and nodding his head.
It was Ruffles who gave the ‘okay, you can come in call’ and Cillin went in and he’s lived there ever since.

The three of them still visited my house daily, sometimes just to see if there was any food going, sometimes to shelter from the sun and rain. One day they didn’t show up and they didn’t show up again for two and a half weeks. Naturally I checked to see they were okay; Cillin was establishing himself as Tribe 1’s cock.
After those two and a half weeks they all came visiting again. Cillin no longer pecked at my boots to be picked up and on a good day I might get a brief your one of my hens shuffle when I let the tribe out in the morning. Cillin comes if I call for him and we share the escort duties from time to time. Last year he became a dad and this year a granddad.

I’ve watched the ‘can I join the tribe’ performance too often now to believe it’s an unusual occurrence.
In general the hens here don’t get unwanted attentions from the cocks. I’ve had two cocks who didn’t join a tribe for various reasons who turned into serial rapists. It was a nightmare. They got eaten.

The cockerels do try it on but most of the hens are quite capable of fending them off and if they can’t the Tribe’s senior cock will. As they grow up in a tribe the cockerels seem to learn the order of things and calm down. I have a young cockerel from Tribe 2 here at the moment who fancies Myth. He finds her bugs and calls her to come and eat them but Myth knows if she takes food from him he’ll take it as a sign she wants to mate.

 

[centrarchid]

What about satellite males?

 

[Shadrach]

I suppose that is what Rip was in the story above.
There are cocks and cockerels in Tribe 2 at the moment but they're growing up and tend to stick with the tribe.
Tribe 1 has a young cockerel now and I'll be interested to see what happens.